Humane Association to host silent auction, drop-a-thon

The Humane Association of Central New York will host its fourth annual Silent Auction and Drop-a-Thon from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday Oct. 1. The event allows people to drop off goods at the no-kill shelter on Taft Road in Liverpool; members of the community are also invited inside for an open house, where they can take part in a silent auction and check out the shelter’s many pets for adoption.

“It’s the perfect day to come see all of our animals,” said Bethann Kistner, fundraising chair for the event. “We have a lot of cats, a ton of kittens, we have some dog and we’ll be getting some puppies. We also have three ferrets and two birds.”

Kistner ended up on the board of directors after the first Drop-a-Thon.

“I do marketing and communications for a living,” she said. “I called them and I said, ‘I think I can head your fundraising.’ And then I joined the board.”

The silent auction includes $13,000 worth of items; Kistner said she expected that figure to climb to $15,000 by Saturday.

“We have everything you could imagine,” she said, “from restaurant gift cards from every restaurant under the sun, Disney park hopper passes, a Keurig coffee machine with all the accessories, a signed photo of John Travolta, and the majority of it is from this area.”

The Drop-A-Thon, meanwhile, invites members of the community to bring supplies to the shelter – items like cat and kitten food, dog and puppy food, blankets and comforters, office supplies, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent and more.

“You’d be amazed how much laundry detergent they go through,” Kistner said. “They do probably 20 loads a day.”

In fact, with the help of a local donor, the Humane Association will be purchasing a commercial washer; the donor will be matching $1 for every $2 donated during the Oct. 1 event up to $10,000 for the big purchase.